When the Next Shoe to Drop is Actually a Steel-toed Work Boot

Then What?

Aaaaand, she slowly emerges from her e-coli crypt. I’m sipping my coffee and pondering how I survived breast cancer only to feel like I was going to be taken out by bacteria.

A noise interrupted my reverie. It was a little scuffling sound.

Oh suweet babee Jesus, is it a mouse? REALLY?

During our almost 33 years of marriage, my was-band was in charge of mouse patrol. After such a long partnership, you find it’s all on your shoulders too. Car noises, internet issues, and now, mice…I must now figure it out.

But first, a moment for self-pity.

Haven’t I had enough to deal with? Why, oh, why? Can’t a girl catch a break?

Every time the “other shoe” has dropped this past year, it has come in the form of what we used to call “shit kickers”–steel toed hiking boots. It was the I-mean-business footwear that lent a little confidence to my stride. A swagger, if you will. Got trouble? I got me my shit kickers on. Away with ye!

It was also comforting to know that should a tree fall on my foot; my piggies would be unscathed. In actuality, I have never had a tree fall on my foot, but one can never be too careful, right?

I hear the little scuffle noise again.

Maybe I’ll just let the little varmint live in peace. But yeah, I know that is not a solution. And besides, I’m moving slow still so there will be no trips to the store for mousetraps.

I could set my tiny home on fire and walk off into the desert.

Hmmmm. That seems a little extreme. Though it would be a fast, effective way to deal with the unwanted resident.

Good god, what if there’s a nest of them? Yeah, this would be the steel-toed boot to drop for sure. There’re probably cockroaches too. Maybe scorpions. This is, after all, the desert.

And then I recall a short video clip featuring one of my favorite thinkers, Brene Brown.

She is addressing the “other shoe to drop” mentality. This caught my attention. And then she says, this is the major block to experiencing joy.

After all, how can we enjoy a happy, enjoyable moment if we’re always locked and loaded on the next perceived threat? (My interpretation of how she elaborated on the thought.)

These past few weeks have been anything but joyous but illness aside. I realize I’ve been totally living in the waiting for the other shoe to drop zone.

I ponder on the trials of last year. The anxiety is well justified; me thinks. I never even caught my breath between the blows.

But I don’t want to live in that ever-vigilant state, perpetually scanning the horizon for the next nuclear warhead coming in hot. Seeing the light at the end of the tunnel and know intuitively it is not a gorilla holding a flashlight. You must brace for the train collision.

Living at DEFCON 4 is almost as exhausting as trying to control things I know are beyond my control.

My reverie is interrupted once again. I must be brave and open the small closet door. At least that’s where I think it’s coming from.

I take a deep breath, get my butt off the chair… and then trip over the charging cable that has somehow worked it’s away into a death trap.

I never miss a moment to catastrophize, so this triggers another thought.

Maybe I’ll end up like one of those scenes in the movies where they fall down the stairs and die of a broken neck. But there’s no stairs here and I’m fresh out of Victorian dresses, so I am forced to tap into my creativity, which happily delivers an imaginary catastrophic outcome in about .002 seconds.

Note to self: leave key with neighbor in case I like, you know, die.

But wait? There’s that noise again. The scuffle.

I jiggle the cord I just tripped over. Scuffle.

Jiggle, scuffle. Jiggle, jiggle, scuffle.

I pick up the cord, do the jiggle and boom-I have recreated the noise.

Perhaps the only mice around here are those who’ve taken up resident in my brain while I was languishing. I often sense their presence, running on little gerbil wheels and twitching.

Are you kidding me? A perfectly good pity-party, a sound jolt of fear thanks to my ability to catastrophize with the best of them, and a touch of rage, all wasted.

I spent all that energy on an issue that wasn’t there. No shoe, shit kickers or otherwise, befell me.

Learning to slow down my racing mind and its tendency to go dark on the brightest day is a noble pursuit. I don’t want to block joy.

I know what it’s like to dwell in fear and anxiety and while they serve as an excellent warning system when something is off; they are terrible drivers when they are in the front seat.

More joy. Less fear.

Less future tripping. More being in the present moment.

It’s that simple and that hard.

I may need to put those shitkickers on my feet and just keep moving forward.

And if I encounter any mice, I’ll be ready for ‘em.

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